laudable Practice

Mark Frank's sermons ( First and Second Sermons) for the feast of the Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin exemplify how Laudian Marian piety was warm and unembarrassed while yet doctrinally Reformed.  The reverence with which he addresses the Lord's Mother - "blessed Mary", "Mary the blessed", "holy Mary" - was entirely conventional.  Not only did it reflect the works of the Reformers themselves (see, for example, Calvin ), it also was seen in the preaching of Donne, hardly a representative of the avant-garde .  One of Donne's sermons for the feast opened with the words, "The church ... celebrates this day, the purification of the blessed Virgin, the mother of God".  (It is worth noting at this point that the term 'Mother of God' does not appear in Frank's sermons from the Purification or the Annunciation, an indication of the conventional Reformed modesty of Laudian Marian piety.) Similarly, even Frank's referenc...

We may tell those who still contrive the ruin of the Church, the best and the best-reformed church in the Christian World ... that God would not so miraculously have snatched this Church as a brand out of the fire, would not have raised it from the grave, after he had suffered it to be buried so many years, by the boisterous hands of profane and sacrilegious persons, under its own rubbish, to expose it again to the same rapine, reproach and impiety. Thus did Clarendon, Charles II's chief minister 1660-67, describe the restoration of the Church of England. As readers of Paul Lay's excellent Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell's Protectorate (2020) will know, it was a close-run thing.  If the issue of Cromwell's succession had been better managed, there was a likelihood that the Protectorate would have continued, with Royalism militarily defeated and the populace reluctantly reconciled to the peace and order brought by the Cromwellian regime.  Contemporary rec...

[T]he rhythms and rituals of parish life ... were central to his perception of the ecclesia Anglicana. Kevin Sharpe's description of the values at the heart of the ecclesiastical policies of Charles I can function as a description of the heart of the Laudian vision.  This had been inherited from Hooker's defence of Conformity and emphasis on the formative significance of the reading of prayers and Scripture ahead of preaching: A great part of the cause, whereof religious minds are so inflamed with the love of public devotion, is that virtue, force and efficacy, which by experience they find the very form and reverend solemnity of common prayer duly ordered ( LEP V.25.1) Likewise, Hooker's apologia for the "holiness and virtue we ascribe to the Church more than other places" also provided an anticipation of 'parochial Laudianism': for performance of this service by the people of God assembled we think not any place so good as the Church, nor any exhort...

Diarmaid MacCulloch ends his essay ' The Virgin Mary and Protestant Reformers ' by referring to the emergence in the 1620s of "hints of a different voice within Protestantism".  I am not at all convinced that the examples offered by MacCulloch - "cultured Protestant noblemen" in England displaying "Scriptural scenes from the life of Our Lady in their private chapels", a work by French Protestant divine Charles Drelincourt, and "the clerical party fostered by Lancelot Andrewes" - equate to a "different voice".  In each case, the key doctrinal commitments of the Reformation regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary were affirmed and maintained.   What is more, as has recently been discussed regarding Cranmer's Christmas collect , the Reformed Marian piety of the Lutheran and Zurich Reformations found quiet but earnest expression in the Book of Common Prayer.  That said, perhaps MacCulloch, while certainly overstating matters, rightly ...

Sermons from the Caroline, Restoration, and Revolution eras suggest a lively Epiphany piety within the Church of England, with the significance of the feast as the culmination of Christmas recognised and traditional Epiphany themes echoed.   In a ' Sermon concerning the Epiphany ', preached in Christ Church, Oxford, in 1639, Richard Gardyner (deprived during the Interregnum) encouraged his listeners to adore with the Magi: But let us, who acknowledge Christ our Liege Prince, and Sovereign, like good subjects humbly seek, & come to this God Incarnate, falling down at the Manger, and at the lap of the Virgin, where this blessed Child lieth ... and there behold him given to us, borne for us, sucking, growing, dying, rising again, ascending above the heavens that he may at length bring us thither, where we shall see him face to face, which we beseech him to grant us for his mercies, and merits sake.  In doing so, he notes that he is in disagreement with Calvin's understan...

Throughout these "days of holy Advent", laudable Practice has considered Advent observance in the Church of England between the Restoration and the Revolution, and its roots in the Advent observance of the Caroline era and through the Interregnum.  As the season draws to a close, we finish with words from an Advent Sunday sermon by Mark Frank, probably preached in the Caroline years and published in 1672 , providing guidance to Restoration clergy.  Frank here exemplifies the common understanding in the Caroline and Restoration eras of Advent as a preparation for the celebration of Christmas. While contemporary liturgies routinely downplay or disapprove of this emphasis, it has both a liturgical and pastoral rationale.   Frank's sermon is based on the Prayer Book Gospel for Advent Sunday, St. Matthew's account of the Lord's entry into Jerusalem: "And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is he...

The sermons of the Caroline divine Mark Frank (d.1664) for the Christian year - A Course of Sermons, Beginning at Advent, and so continued through the Festivals - were published in 1672.  Ejected from his position in Cambridge in 1644 for refusal to subscribe to the Solemn League and Covenant, at the Restoration Frank had been reinstated as a Fellow of Pembroke Hall, and also appointed Archdeacon of St. Albans and to the Chapter of St. Paul's.  In 1662 he became Master of Pembroke Hall. He was also a chaplain to the first two post-Restoration Archbishops of Canterbury, Juxon and Sheldon.  Frank's standing in the Restoration Church was, therefore, very evident, a standing which would have given recognition and status to his published sermons.  Indeed, the sermons were dedicated to Sheldon, noting that Frank "had that Relation to your Grace, and yourself that Favour for him". As such, his sermons for the season of Advent almost certainly had an influence in shap...